


The Road Less Traveled

by GarrettCRW



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-03
Updated: 2015-07-25
Packaged: 2018-04-11 05:04:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 15,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4422440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GarrettCRW/pseuds/GarrettCRW
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Buffy and Willow encounter a demon and end up in a world where Willow is the Slayer and Buffy is the Wicca, with significantly different lifestyles. Set after "Conversations With Dead People".</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"What's the name of this thing again, Will? An Ashanti demon?"

"Not Ashanti, Buffy," corrected Willow, "Vishantrai. Totally different."

"Well, that's a relief," announced Xander sarcastically. "Although I for one wouldn't mind listening to the melodic, sinister stylings of a demony songstress."

All three of Xander's companions-Buffy, Willow, and Dawn-groaned at his joke loudly, and with good reason. "Xander," moaned Willow, voicing her exasperation.

"Come on, Will," replied Xander jokingly, "don't tell me you wouldn't mind having a demon like that around."

"You know that I prefer blondes, Xander," answered Willow with a slightly mischievous look on her face. "Right, Buffy?"

Buffy caught the look, and its meaning, and put her arm around Willow waist as she said seductively, "Absolutely. Wasn't last night proof enough?"

Xander's jaw dropped almost as fast as other parts of his body rose to full attention. Dawn similarly lost her cool, screaming loudly as she covered her ears and shouted, "Virgin ears! Virgin ears!"

"It didn't bother you at all that summer when Buffy was dead," mentioned Willow knowingly.

"Well, you weren't doing...it with my sister," complained the thoroughly grossed out teen. "And at least Buffy is quiet."

"And just how would you know that?" asked Buffy, now showing definite signs of annoyance.

"Well, there were all those times when Riley would stay overnight and have a big grin on his face in the morning." Willow snickered, causing Dawn to take the defensive. "What? What'd I say?"

"Riley always had that look on his face," answered Willow. "The guy's like a big ol' puppy dog."

"Hey!" interrupted Xander, sounding as if he were hurt. "I thought that I was the one who was like a puppy dog."

"Sorry, Xand," said Buffy with a bit of mock sympathy in her voice. "You just look like a manly world-saving guy." After letting Xander bask in his own glory for a moment, Buffy added. "Besides, Willow and I need you to think that you're all buff so we can go make out while you and Dawn kill this demon."

Yet again, Dawn was shocked beyond words. "Buffy!"

Well, almost.

"Jeez, I can't even make a series of crude sexual jokes anymore," groused the Slayer. "Why even bother saving the world?"

"Well, I appreciate the joke," remarked Xander earnestly.

"Eww, Xander," answered Dawn as the three women stopped to absorb the implications of Xander's "appreciation".

"I have to go with Dawn here," announced Buffy. "That was pretty 'ew'."

The group started walking again, and soon Buffy and Dawn were bearing down on Willow, who had yet to express her disdain. "What?"

"You're supposed to voice your disgust, Will," said Buffy in a motherly tone of voice.

"Why?"

Dawn spoke next, nearly channeling the spirit of Cordelia as she did so. "So, you actually like it when a guy admits to getting off on you? How sick is that?"

Shrugging, Willow said, "What can I say? That guy is my best friend. Besides, he doesn't have a chance with me, so what kind of person would I be to destroy his perverted fantasies?"

"Aren't we supposed to be hunting something?" asked Xander, now quick to change what was quickly becoming a very painful subject.

"I guess so," responded the Slayer with a little pout. "What does this thing do, anyways?"

"It has some power over time," said Willow, with an apparent lack of confidence in her voice. "It's all a bunch of vague Giles-y prophecies and double talk. The only thing that's clear is that its victims end up kinda insane."

"Insane?" asked Buffy, just a touch of old fears rising in her as she spoke. "How so?"

"The accounts talk of people claiming things that either couldn't have happened, or wouldn't have, at least not for some time. Best friends who the victims claimed they had never met. Enemies being recognized as life-long loves. Fiancés being recognized as husbands or wives-and claiming that they had families. Just really strange stuff."

"Oh, like Angel falling in love with Cordelia?" asked Xander, taking time to laugh at that ridiculous notion.

Buffy glared at Xander for a moment, and began laughing herself when she realized how preposterous the idea was. "That's a good one, Xander," she replied between rounds of laughter. "Angel in love with Cordy...like that'd ever happen." Willow and Dawn joined in on the joke, and laughed with the others for a moment or two before Buffy returned to the matter at hand. "How can that be possible? The bizarro world where Angel loves Cordy and all that?"

"Temporal folds," murmured Xander, much to everyone's surprise. "It's a big Star Trek thing-this one episode had Worf shifting through worlds, where little things would be different from the last world, until things were totally different."

"You are such a geek, Xander," noted Buffy with a bit of disgust.

"But a world-saving geek," responded the onetime Zeppo with pride.

"Yes you are," replied Buffy as she handed him an axe. "Now, go save the world with Dawn while Willow and I have wild sex inside one of the crypts."

"EWWWWW!"

"Still joking," announced the Slayer sarcastically. After a brief pause, she added, "Xander, Dawn, go that way," while pointing in a westerly direction. "Willow and I will circle the area, we'll kill this thing, go home, and party."

"A party? Cool!"

"It was just an expression, Dawn," shouted Buffy as she and Willow began circling. "Besides, I'm pretty sure you have some homework to do..."

"Spoilsport," groused Dawn as she and Xander headed off in their assigned direction.

* * *

 

     "So," declared Buffy after a very long and uncomfortable silence, "how are things?"

"Better," replied Willow awkwardly as she looked up from her book on the Vishantrai demon. "Still a little freaked about last week at the library, though."

"Having the image of your dead girlfriend tell you it'd be a good idea to kill yourself isn't exactly supposed to be fun, Will," stated the Slayer. "Although the world hasn't exactly been Disneyland for you this year..."

"Yeah," agreed Willow. "You know it's a bad year when the best news is that your best friend loves you even when you're about to kill him just before you destroy the world."

"I don't know," answered Buffy coyly. "I seem to remember a time when a certain someone I know would have considered hearing Xander Harris say, 'I love you,' to be the best year of her life."

"I'm kinda gay now, Buffy," reminded Willow. "Plus there's that whole, 'I'm over you,' thing that we dealt with a couple of years ago."

"The point is, Willow," noted Buffy, "things change. Sure, Tara dying is always going to hurt, but you're not going to spend the rest of your life saying, 'That year was the worst year of my life.' You'll spend more time remembering the good stuff, and not dwell on the bad so much."

"Oh!" shouted Willow eagerly. "Like how I never mention how bad the lemonade you made for Parent-Teacher Night was?"

"Hey!" cried out Buffy, her feelings now hurt. "You said that it was good!"

"Sorry."

"Uh, what does this thing look like, anyways?" asked Buffy as she looked ahead.

Not noticing the panic in Buffy's voice, Willow looked in her book without paying mind to her surroundings. "Let's see...tall..."

"OK..."

"...scaly..."

"Check..."

"...big teeth..."

"Uh huh..."

"...lots of drool..."

"I'll say..."

"I don't believe it," finished Willow with a note of astonishment. "It does sort of look like Ashanti."

"I'm sure Xander will be pleased," remarked Buffy, now sounding incredibly anxious.

Closing her book, Willow looked at Buffy and asked, "Uh, why do you want to know what it looks like?"

Pointing as the extremely angry looking Vishantrai demon in front of her, Buffy said blandly, "I think I found it."

Before Willow could answer, the demon shouted something in its native tongue, then raised its hands at the two and blasting both Willow and Buffy with a lightening-like energy. Both women were thrown back by the attack, each colliding with a gravestone as blackness claimed them.

* * *

"Buffy?"

Willow groaned as she sat up and started to look for her friend. "Buffy? Where are-" Willow spotted the Slayer some four yards away, unconscious. "Buffy?" Looking around for the Vishantrai demon, Willow frantically shook her friend in an effort to awaken her. "Buffy! Get up!"

"Its alright, Dawn..." mumbled Buffy, still heavily dazed. "Mom won' mind if you skip school today..."

"Buffy, come on!" Glancing over her shoulder fearfully, Willow urged, "Buffy, you need to kill the demon!"

"Tha's OK, Mom," mumbled Buffy. "Faith can do it..."

"Faith's in jail!" screamed the redhead, desperate for Buffy to save their proverbial (and non-proverbial) bacon. The problem is, the Vishantrai heard her, and decided it was high time to finish this little escapade once and for all.

"Oh, crap," muttered the witch as she steeled herself for battle.

"Incendiere!" Normally, that word, as shouted by Willow, would cause a large fireball to appear. Now, however, it did nothing.

"Illuminos!"

"Aquamentos!"

No matter how hard she tried, none of Willow's spells seemed to work. Not that the Vishantrai cared or anything, for it smacked Willow in her face. "Well, that wasn't very nice," replied Willow as she wiped blood from her nose, not pausing to realize that the rather large demon had failed to send her flying.

Willow again attempted a spell, but was stopped by a hard uppercut from her opponent. Battered and dazed, the redhead teetered for a seeming eternity as the Vishantrai prepared for its finishing blow...

SHHTHUNK!

The demon screamed out loudly as it was hit in the shoulder by an arrow. Now distracted, the Vishantrai ignored Willow as it looked for the creature responsible for the attack.

"Willow!"

The Vishantrai saw two humans approaching, and one of them (the same one carrying the crossbow used to injure it, as well as the one shouting) looked mighty pissed. It didn't have to wait for the humans to attack again to get the hint; instead, the ugly terror decided to (wisely) cut and run.

"Hey, Xand..." Willow's greeting to her oldest friend belied her current state of consciousness. Namely, that of, "barely". "S'OK if I take a nap now...?"

Willow didn't bother for Xander's response, instead opting to pass out in his arms. "Will?" asked Xander, nervously. "Willow?"

"She's out cold, Xander," noted Dawn with concern, however obvious the statement may have been. "If it did that to her, what did it do to Buffy?" Turning, Dawn began shouting her sister's name, the fear in her voice as thick as the night itself. "Buffy!"

"She can't be too far from here," replied Xander. "I'm going to get the car." Dawn nodded as Xander picked up Willow and carried her off to relative safety.

"Buffy, where are you?"

Dawn began panicking as a figure rose from one of the graves, convinced that something very not Buffy-like was coming to get her. The Slayer's younger, artificial sister prepared herself as the shape stumbled closer. Finally, it spoke.

"Dawnie?"

"Buffy?" Dawn nearly tackled her big sister, too relieved to notice that Buffy was in about the same shape as Willow: bad. "Are you alright?"

"Concussion," answered the blonde heroine with the economy of words inherent in someone who really doesn't feel like talking. "Where's Will?"

"Xander has her," replied Dawn. "He's getting his car so we can go home."

"Sleep is good..." murmured Buffy as she started to walk forward, only to stumble. "Whoops..."

"Let me help," offered the younger Summers girl as she grabbed ahold of her sister. "Then you can go home and get some rest."

"Mmm...sleep..." answered the Slayer as she started moving forward gingerly, into the night and towards the safety of Xander's car.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Buffy was in heaven.

Well, not physically, or even spiritually, or any other sense of actually being in heaven, but that's how good she was feeling at this moment in time.

Sure, she was probably a great big black and blue because of the Mahavishnu? Vishara?...the whatever demon, but Buffy was in a state of pure, soul-sacrificing bliss.

Some time after collapsing into bed, Buffy had awoken to find herself being held by someone. Someone gentle and warm (though a bit scrawny, even when compared to Spike), who stroked her hair as she drifted back to sleep. Buffy had never felt this loved before, this complete.

That is, until she woke up this morning.

The person that had slept with her was still there, and still holding her. Their left arm was draped around Buffy's waist, with their hand resting on the Slayer's thigh. Her lover's right hand was resting quite comfortably (well, at least in Buffy's mind) on one of her breasts, almost as if it was meant to be there.

Buffy kept her eyes closed, not wanting to disturb her new lover from their slumber. Buffy smiled broadly, however, purring quite loudly as she enjoyed the sensation of, after years of failed romances, being held exactly the way she had always wanted to be held.

An indefinite amount of time passed peacefully until the Buffy's mysterious lover stirred slightly. Buffy's smile faded, but was quickly replaced with one of rapturous surprise when her lover began fondling Buffy's breasts, creating waves of pleasure that rippled throughout the Slayer's body.

Just when Buffy thought that she couldn't be enjoying herself any more, her lover's left hand traced a slow, laborious path along Buffy's waist, teasing the waistband of the blonde's underwear as the hand threatened to travel southward.

"Oh, God..."

After what seemed like an eternity-an agonizingly wonderful eternity-Buffy climaxed. Loudly. And for a really long time, too. _Good God_ , thought a happily fulfilled Slayer, _now that's an orgasm_.

"So," asked a female voice, "was it as good for your as it was for me?"

In roughly half a second, Buffy's eyes shot open in horror, and she was on her feet babbling at a rate that would put Willow, the world's Babble Queen, to shame.

"OhmygodohmygodohmygodIjusthadsexwithagirlandIlikeditalotwhichisntsupposedtohappenbecauseImnotgayatallnomatterwhatanyoneelsesays!"

"Well, that wasn't exactly the response I was expecting," noted the still unknown woman wryly.

Recognition of the voice caused Buffy to stop babbling for the moment and face her lover. _She's not your lover_ , thought Buffy with her eyes sealed shut as she turned around. Recognition is also what started the Buffy Babble Train again when the Slayer finally opened her eyes. "OhmygoditsTarabutitcantbecauseWarrenkilledherwhichmeansImdeadorcrazyandIdontwanttogobacktothecrazypersonplaceagainwhichmeansithastobeabaddreamohIhopeIhopeIhope!"

"Buffy," whispered Tara, who was now standing and embracing the panicked Vampire Slayer, "breathe."

"Breathe?"

"Yes," repeated the witch, "breathe."

"OK," answered Buffy, before taking a deep breath. "Howareyoualiveyouweres-"

"Shh," interrupted Tara, who began stroking Buffy's hair in an effort to calm her down. "Talk slower."

"OK."

"Now, what's wrong?"

Answering as calmly as she could, Buffy said, "Tara, you're dead. Warren shot you when he was trying to kill me last May.”

"Warren?" asked the other woman. "Willow captured him months ago, when he tried to kill his ex-girlfriend."

"Willow?" questioned Buffy. "But I'm the one who does the world saving. You know, 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' and all?"

"The Slayer?" asked Tara, now clearly puzzled. "Willow is the Slayer. You help with the research. And the spells, of course."

"Spells?"

"Yes," replied Tara, who was now very worried. "You've been doing spells since Angel lost his soul. And then we met the night the Gentlemen came to town. We've been dating for two and a half years."

"But what about Willow? Aren't you and her dating?"

"Willow's kind of off the market, Buffy," answered Tara in a voice that directly implied that she had never found Willow sexually attractive at all. "She's married, remember?"

"Married?" asked Buffy. "Married to who?"

"Why, Xander, of course."

 


	3. Chapter 3

"Xander? Willow's married to Xander?"

"Uh huh," affirmed the apparently-alive-even-though-she's-supposed-to-be-dead Tara. "You were the maid of honor."

"The maid of honor?" parroted Buffy with a heaping amount of fear in her voice. "I've gone crazy. The Visionary demon did its thing, and now I'm going to end back in the asylum and I don't wanna go back there 'cause I wanna be here with Willow and Xander and Dawnie and..."

By this point, Buffy's attempts at speech had devolved into tear-ridden half words and partial syllables. Tara tried as best as she could her girlfriend down, saying, "It's alright, Buffy. Everything's going to be fine. And you are not crazy."

"How can you be so sure?" asked Buffy as Tara wiped the tears from her face. "I mean, one day I'm Buffy the Vampire Slayer, someone who's woefully single (and not gay), and has spent the last year having sex with a vampire just so she can feel something following her return from heaven, letting her little sister become a total klepto while her gay best friend gets hooked on magic before trying to destroy the world when her girlfriend gets killed, only to be saved by her best friend, who she used to be madly in love with before I showed up wearing that damn push-up bra from when I used to think it was a good idea for guys to notice my breasts. Now, I'm a witch having a torrid affair with the girlfriend of my best friend who's supposed to be dead, and my best friend is married to her best friend is the Slayer, which doesn't make any sense when you think about it, because I didn't even know that Lothos existed until Merrick gave me the whole, 'You are the Chosen One' spiel, so how did I get involved in the slaying thing?"

Tara looked at Buffy with a broad smile on her face, and asked, "Is that it?"

Puzzled, Buffy answered, "And I think I'm kinda gay."

"That's good," remarked Tara as she moved a few stray hairs from Buffy's face before whispering in her ear, "because you're really sexy when you babble like that."

Buffy blushed at this admission by Tara as the witch grinned at her devilishly. However (and much to Buffy's relief), Dawn barged into the bedroom with a phone in hand. "Tara, Xander's on the phone and he's wants to talk to you. He sounds like he's seriously freaked out about something."

"OK," murmured Tara as she accepted the phone. "Did you get your homework done?"

Evading Tara's gaze, Dawn snuck out a mumbled, "Yeah..."

"Dawnie..."

"I was busy!" yelled the teen defensively. "If your girlfriend here had managed to not nearly get herself and Willow killed last night, I might have had the time to finish it!"

Tara said nothing, but gave the younger girl a scolding look, which was answered by a disgusted grunt from Dawn as she stormed off in anger. "Hello?"

"Tara?"

"Yes, it's me, Xander," replied Tara. "What's going on?"

"Lots," answered the voice on the other end. "Namely, my wife thinks she's a lesbian witch and that Buffy is the Slayer. Any of this sound familiar to you?"

"Yes, it does," said Tara. "I just managed to calm down Buffy after I woke her up a few minutes ago."

"Details, please," asked Xander with a typically lecherous tint to his voice.

"Don't you wish," remarked Tara as she shot him down. "So, is everything OK with Willow?"

"Now," answered Xander, "yes. Earlier, no way."

"How bad?"

"Will was scared half to death when she woke up," said Xander with fear and concern in his voice. Lowering his voice to a whisper, Xander added, "I've never seen her like this before, Tara."

"I know, Xander," answered Tara on her end of the line. "I'm sure we'll be able to get your Willow back. So, full Scooby meeting at the Magic Box?"

"Sounds like a plan," replied Xander. "Do you want to round up the usual suspects, or should I?"

"Well, Buffy and I need to clean up, so I guess it's your turn to make the rounds," offered the witch. "See you in an hour?"

"Sure thing," answered Xander before hanging up.

"So," asked Buffy, who had been listening to Tara's conversation intently (as well as trying to use her nonexistent Slayer hearing to eavesdrop), "what's the what?"

"Willow's in the same shape as you," replied Tara with a worried look on her face. "Xander's also really worried about her."

"They're really close in this world, aren't they?"

"Very," affirmed Tara solemnly. "Their auras are tightly joined; if anything happens to one of them, the other tends to react very strongly to it."

Tara's comments hit Buffy like a punch to the gut. "That was how it was like before I came to Sunnydale," stated the misplaced Slayer bitterly, as tears again flowed from her eyes. "I have to be the worst Slayer ever; my best friends, who were totally in love with each other when I met them and are now barely friends, and Willow managed not only to save you, but Katrina, too, when I got both of you killed by a geek with a robot fetish."

"Buffy, listen to me," declared Tara firmly as she held onto the crying woman in front of her. "You are not a bad Slayer. You have saved the world..." Tara paused briefly, searching for a number, before continuing, "Anyways, you've saved the world a lot, and more importantly, you have friends and family who love you very much, so much, in fact, that they'd lay their lives down for you."

"You just made all of that up, didn't you?" asked Buffy, her mood lightening ever so slightly as she spoke.

"Basically," admitted Tara with a smile of her own.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say that you're trying to get me back into that bed."

"It's not going to work, is it?" asked Tara, bracing herself for the sad truth.

"Nope," replied the Slayer, now unable hide the smile on her face.

"I can't even join you to wash your back in the shower?"

"Tara," declared Buffy, "You are absolutely terrible."

"Oh, you haven't seen terrible yet," noted Tara as she casually picked clothes out for herself.

"Why, what are you planning?"

"Nothing much," stated Tara innocently as she inched towards the door to their shared bedroom, "except perhaps using up all the hot water in the shower!"

Buffy's jaw dropped in horror as Tara smiled devilishly before turning and running for the bathroom.

 


	4. Chapter 4

"Willow?"

"Yes, Xander?" Willow didn't face her friend _Husband_ , instead opting to look out the large window in Xander's _Our?_ bedroom. The redhead had quickly chosen that spot because everything in the room stood as a stark reminder of a lifelong friendship that had, in this world at least, blossomed into marriage.

"I...uh, just got off the phone with Tara," began Xander, breaking another in a series of uncomfortable silences that had characterized the morning for the two since Xander had managed to calm Willow down. "She said that Buffy's got the whole 'What in the world is going on?' thing that you do."

_Thank the Goddess_ , replied Willow internally as she relaxed slightly. "So, I take it we're going to be having a fun session of the research-y kind in an hour?"

"You heard me on the phone, didn't you?" asked Xander, already knowing what her answer would be.

"Yeah," responded Willow guiltily as she craned her neck briefly in his direction. "Sorry."

"No problem," replied Xander, brushing the incident off as nothing. "Happens all the time with Will. The one I'm married to, I mean." Pausing awkwardly yet again, he added, "I'm gonna call the rest of the gang now, OK?"

"OK." Willow stood quietly for a few seconds before saying, seemingly to herself, "Xander?"

"Yes, Will?"

"How are they? Buffy and Tara, I mean."

Xander stood there for a moment, puzzled, before asking, "In what way?"

"Their relationship," clarified Willow, steeling herself for a truth she feared that she would be unable to handle. "How is it? Are they deeply in love, falling apart, somewhere in between...?"

"Buffy and Tara are very deeply in love," stated Xander honestly. "Next to Angel and Parker, Tara is the best lover anyone-especially Buffy-could have."

Willow sighed deeply, repeating to herself, _I will not cry, I will not cry, I will not cry_ , as she turned around to face the double of her oldest friend. "And us? How are we?"

"We are fine," stated Xander, smiling at the mention of his marriage. "This town, though...I swear, it's killing my Willow." The young man clenched his fists in a show of anger, but quickly repressed his ill feelings. "I don't know how you are, but my Willow is not a born leader, by any means. When we were kids, she was so dreadfully shy, so...fragile. Without each other, there's no doubt we'd both have died ages ago. But being the Slayer demands that Will is the center of attention, and that she takes charge against things no one, especially not a teenage girl, should ever have to encounter." Sighing briefly, Xander continued, "Willow and I started dating while we were stuck in Oxnard. My time with her has been unbelievable, and I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. But I've spent so many nights since I learned about her being the Slayer, and about this town, holding Willow while she cries herself to sleep because of all the shit this fucking town throws at her on a daily basis, that I almost wish she would die, simply so that the pain would stop, and that Willow could finally walk away from the 'good fight'. But then, I know that if Willow dies, I won't be able to live with myself, because I love her so much..."

Willow approached Xander and gave him a fierce hug. _Is this how my Xander feels about me?_ asked the witch to herself, shocked at just how deep this Xander's love for his Willow was.

"Uh, Will?" asked Xander, in obvious pain. "Can you let go?"

"Huh?" answered Willow ignorantly. "What's wrong?"

"Can't...breathe..."

"Oh my God, I'm so sorry!" Instinctively, Willow let go of Xander as fast as she could. Xander fell and landed flat on his rear. "Are you alright?"

"I'll live," groaned Xander as Willow helped him up. "How about we do that getting ready thing we were going to earlier before you tried to kill me with your Slayer powers?"

"Sounds like a plan," remarked Willow as she started hunting for clothes to wear. "Oh, Xander?"

"Yes, Will?" answered Xander as he stopped at the doorway and turned to face the copy of his wife.

"Thank you, for everything."

"Just doing my job," replied Xander as he turned and left.

Willow stared at the hallway afterwards, lost in thought about not only this Xander and his Willow, but of the Xander she thought she knew so well.

* * *

"Wow," said Buffy as she and Tara entered the Magic Box, "it's...intact."

"You sound like that's a strange thing," remarked Tara.

"Let's just say that in my world, it stands as a monument to how upset Willow was when you were killed."

"Oh."

Buffy looked on with curiosity at the girl running the register, whom she did not recognize until the girl spoke. "Hey, guys. What brings you here so early?" Amy was almost an entirely different person here. Instead of being a recently de-ratted magic junkie, she was clean-cut and displayed a level of maturity and confidence far beyond the reach of the woman Buffy knew. In short, Amy looked positively stunning.

_Oh my God, Amy is a fox!_ thought Buffy as she stared at the woman standing politely before her. _But that doesn't mean I wouldn't like to take her into the back room and ravage her all day long, because I am not gay whatsoever. Do you hear me, body? I'M NOT GAY!_ However, despite her internal protests, Buffy continued to stare and think very impure thoughts about Amy.

"The Vishantrai demon, I'm afraid," answered Tara. "Buffy and Willow had a close encounter with it last night, and now we've got Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Willow the witch."

"You make it sound so simple," said Amy with a knowing glint in her eye.

"Willow's gay and Buffy's straight," blurted out Tara.

"You're straight?" asked Amy of Buffy. "Could have fooled me."

Buffy sat down at the Magic Box's large table in defeat. "It has to be the air, or the water..."

"...or the women..." murmured Tara with a hint of satisfaction as she sat down beside Buffy.

"Anyway," replied the other blonde as she glared at Tara with mock anger, "there's something wrong with me, because I'm so not gay. I've never even had thoughts like that about women before."

"But you've been checking me out since you first saw me," noted Amy.

"And you slept with me and let me take care of your...you this morning without noticing that I'm sort of, oh, girl-shaped," added Tara. "After all, I'm not exactly a butch or anything."

Buffy looked Tara over quickly to mentally confirm this fact, and it wasn't very long before she turned away, her face as red as a beet. "Can we please change the subject now? This game of 'Give Buffy the Third Degree' is getting a bit uncomfortable."

"Oh, but that's when it starts getting fun, B," announced a female voice that came from the training room in the back of the store.

The three women turned to face the voice, and while Amy and Tara happily greeted Faith, Buffy's reaction was far darker. Years of unresolved feelings towards the raven-haired Slayer raged anew inside Buffy's soul, setting off a temper that, in Buffy's own universe, would cause demons everywhere to cower in terror. However, in this universe, Buffy was a witch, not a Slayer, and a powerful one to boot. Left in the care of an experienced spell caster, a display of anger could be easily controlled. In Buffy's hands, however, her anger kept feeding itself, and soon it was out of control.

"Faith," growled Buffy as she stood up, her eyes black as midnight.

"Whoa, B, calm down," replied Faith, "I was only joking."

"The only thing that'll be better than killing you is the slow torture a bitch like yourself deserves," declared Buffy as she approached the double of her rival. "I think it's about time you learned what a real Slayer is."

 


	5. Chapter 5

"B, seriously, you're scaring me." Faith backed up fearfully as she tried to reason with Buffy.

"Buffy, please," pleaded Tara nervously. "The magicks in your body are affecting you..."

"Back off," stated the Slayer imperiously as she sent Tara and Amy flying with a simple wave of her arm.

"I thought you said she wasn't a witch," complained Amy as she struggled to get back on her feet.

"She isn't," affirmed Tara. "That's why she lost it at the very sight of Faith, and why she's been so...so..."

"Hormonal?" offered Amy as she helped the other witch up off the floor.

"Exactly." Explaining things further, Tara said, "Our power is like energy: it can't be created or destroyed, but it can be transferred, and our bodies are like conduits for that power. This Buffy isn’t used to controlling the magical power in our Buffy’s body, and she’s just riding the waves of power like a runaway bull.”

"So, in other words," asked Amy, "this Buffy really, really hates Faith, and now she's going off like Mt. Saint Helens because she has the body of a heavy magic user and can’t control herself.”

"Right." Looking on as Buffy towered over a now-cowering Faith, Tara asked, "Any ideas on how to stop her?"

"Not a one," answered Amy as the two women exchanged fearful glances.

* * *

"And you caught them having sex in Giles' living room floor?"

"You should have seen Buffy," replied Xander, who, like Willow, was laughing quite happily as the two walked to the Magic Box. "She was horrified!"

"I would have been, too," mentioned Willow. "I mean, Buffy's Mom and Giles? Having sex? Not exactly something I'd want to see. Ever."

"Faith couldn't get enough of it," continued Xander. "She-"

"Faith?" asked Willow nervously. "Is she here, in Sunnydale?"

"Of course," answered Xander off-handedly. "Why wouldn't she be?"

Willow faced Xander, her face a picture of grim determination as she explained, "Faith went evil in our universe, and Buffy doesn't like her. I mean **really** doesn't like her."

"Wait a second," replied Xander. "So, Buffy, who currently has these new-to-her magic powers, really hates Faith, who I've asked to come to the Scooby pow-wow."

"Yes."

"And you, as a witch yourself, would consider this to be a bad thing, correct?"

“Extremely.”

Willow and Xander looked at each other for a moment before saying simultaneously, "Oh, shit." Without thinking, the two made a dead heat for the store, both praying that Faith and Buffy had yet to cross paths.

* * *

"You realize that if Buffy realizes that we're casting this spell, we're dead, right?" asked Amy as she sat down in front of Tara.

"Possibly," answered Tara as she glanced at Buffy, who was currently shouting at Faith, now bruised and unconscious on the floor near the ladder to the platform containing what Amy called the "If-Buffy-goes-after-them-the-world-is-doomed" books. "I think we're mostly lucky that she subscribes to the super villain theory of being evil."

"What kind of evil is that?"

"The type that talks too much," replied the blonde witch as she grabbed Amy's hands and started to chant.

A few tense moments passed until the door opened, revealing Willow and a heavily winded Xander. "Buffy?"

"Will?" asked the Slayer, her guard dropping for the briefest of moments before her eyes reverted to their previously black state.

_Dear Goddess_ , thought Willow as she gazed at Buffy and saw some of the same darkness that had claimed her following Tara's death. "Buffy, everything will be alright if you..."

"If I what?" asked Buffy, the fury in her voice raising precipitously. "Calm down? Cry like a baby because you love me? Or because Xander loves me?" Both Willow and Xander winced at the comment, shocked at Buffy's callousness.

"Buffy, you don't want to do this..." pleaded Willow, which was answered by a magickal backhand from her friend that sent the redhead flying into the research table. "Just my luck," muttered the witch as she stood up, "even Buffy doesn't buy that 'We don't kill people' crap she tried to sell me."

"Of course I want to do this," sneered Buffy as she faced down the shorter woman. "I can't believe that you, of all people, who despises that slut, would try to stop me from killing Faith. Or are you now over Xander enough to forgive her for boinking your best friend?"

"I had sex with Faith?" asked Xander at a louder volume than he had intended.

"That's not the same Faith that 'boinked' Xander and Riley," pleaded Willow. "Besides, do you really want to be a killer, like I am? Like Faith?"

Willow's words had an affect, as Buffy began to alternate her gaze between the dark-haired Slayer and her own hands. Even the most lax of observers could realize that Buffy was becoming increasingly horrified with each passing glance. The clincher, however, came, quite literally through the front door to the Magic Box.

"I'm not angry, love, just...annoyed. After all, it isn't as if we...oh, my." Rupert Giles stopped his commentary in mid-sentence as he noticed that his shop was, in a word, trashed. Not that Giles would ever use that word, of course.

Giles' companion, a striking blonde woman in her 40s, gasped as she saw the level of devastation, of which her daughter was at the center of. "Buffy?"

The dark Slayer/witch immediately recognized the image of her mother, Joyce Summers, and shook her head in disbelief before whispering, "Mom?" Joyce rushed to Buffy, and that’s when the waterworks started. “Mommy?”

Joyce Summers-Giles hugged her daughter fiercely, whispering comforting words into the ears of her sobbing daughter. "It's alright, honey. Everything's going to be alright."

 


	6. Chapter 6

"Feeling better, honey?"

"Yes, Mom," answered Buffy, who was currently the definition of contented as she sat on the living room couch of her home, fresh from the shower and wearing a thick, over-sized bathrobe.

"Well, then," announced Buffy's mother as she stood up, "I guess this means that I've fulfilled my motherly duties for the day." Turning towards Tara, who was walking towards Buffy with a coffee mug in her hands, Joyce asked, "Will you be OK by yourself?"

"I-I think so, Mrs. Summers," answered the witch, who was more concerned with not spilling the contents of the mug at the moment than her girlfriend's mother.

"Please, Tara, call me Joyce," implored the elder Summers woman for what seemed like (to Joyce, at any rate) the millionth time. "Being called 'Mrs. Summers' makes me feel as old as my mother. And still married to Buffy's father, on top of it."

"Sorry, Mrs...Joyce," answered Tara, changing her response mid-sentence as the older woman scowled at her discouragingly.

"I'll be at work," declared Joyce as she turned to leave, "so if you need me, just ask for 'The Evil Witch Terrorizing Everyone Because Her Vacation Got Cut Short.'"

"OK," giggled Tara as she watched Joyce leave. Turning towards Buffy after the front door closed, she remarked, "Your Mom is horrible, Buffy."

"You're telling me," answered the Slayer. "The worst part is that I'm pretty sure that she's not kidding."

"Must be that legendary Summers temper," murmured Tara slyly. "Cocoa?"

Buffy grabbed the mug greedily, taking little time to enjoy the chocolate-y goodness contained therein. "Hey!" shouted Buffy between gulps, "Is this supposed to make me forget that you just said I’m something that rhymes with ‘witchy’?”

"It can be if you want it to," purred Tara as Buffy took another swig of her drink. "Though, I must admit I was hoping that I'd need to use stronger methods of persuasion..."

The sultry look on Tara's face was so effective that it nearly caused Buffy to choke on her cocoa. Tara rushed to Buffy's side as the Slayer erupted into a coughing fit as the result of her drink going down the wrong tube. "Buffy, are you alright?"

"You are so evil," replied Buffy sternly before smiling weakly.

"That's what my family tells me," joked Tara as she returned her lover's smile. "The offer still stands, though."

"So, this is how I became gay," asked Buffy in full sarcasm mode, "by being worn down?"

"No," answered Tara with a self-assured grin. "I got you hot 'n horny by performing spells all night, every night, for a few months. Spells like the ones I'm teaching you starting tomorrow."

"Spells?" By this point, Tara was leaning towards Buffy, giving the Slayer a generous view of her cleavage (which Buffy noticed was generous in and of itself). This and the blonde witch's come-hither expression were driving Buffy wild with desire-just as Tara wanted. "Tara, I..."

"Yes, Buffy?"

"I...I can't can't do this," replied the Slayer nervously. "I...I mean, we...it's just too much." Responding to the mixture of confusion and hurt written on Tara's face, Buffy continued, "I've always thought of myself as being totally straight, and now I wake up here in this alternate reality, with you, and it's like, 'Hello, gay now,' with the feelings, and it's such a huge thing for me. Throw in the whole, 'Tara's supposed to be dead' thing, and you've got one very confused Buffy here."

"Well, I haven't exactly helped matters any," remarked Tara, who looked down in a show of both remorse and embarrassment. "After all, I'm pretty well aware that my womanly charms work wonders on blonde ex-cheerleaders.” Tara made an exaggerated leering gesture that was enough to make both herself and Buffy chuckle. "But honestly," replied the blonde witch seriously, "I'm sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable, Buffy. I guess I'm just used to being with my Buffy, and when I see you..."

"You want to ravish me in every way possible, and leave me begging for more?"

"More or less," answered Tara, who hid her mild surprise at being sussed out so easily beneath a sly grin.

"Evil," declared Buffy. "Pure evil."

"Pure evil with homework," added the witch ruefully. "If you need me, I'll be in the dining room, OK?"

"OK," affirmed the Slayer, who froze briefly as her companion leaned in for a kiss. Running on instinct, Buffy closed her eyes and readied herself. However, all she received was a kiss on her forehead.

* * *

"Dude," announced Faith, clearly in shock, "your world **sucks**."

"Gee, thanks," muttered Willow indignantly. "You have no idea just how good that makes me feel."

"Sorry, Red," offered the raven-haired Slayer apologetically. "I just call 'em as I see 'em."

"Apologizing?" asked Willow, a combination of surprise and amusement coloring her words. "You certainly aren't the same 'Get Some, Get Gone' Faith that I know."

Faith winced at the mention of her old motto as she glanced at Willow and Xander, respectively, with great regret. "Well, I learned the hard way that it isn't always that easy. Right, Xan?"

Xander nodded solemnly as he and Faith shared a meaningful glance, one which Willow noticed immediately. _Is Xander cheating on me?_ Calming herself down as Amy complained (quite justifiably) about how her counterpart was a "rat-brained twit of a magick junkie who deserved to be shot", Willow couldn't help but feel jealous of Faith. _OK, feeling jealous of Faith-who-isn't-the-Faith-I-know over this world's Xander, even though I just told my Xander that I was over him a few weeks ago. And now I'm babbling in my mind, and totally ignoring the fact that I'm kinda gay._

_Right?_

"Willow?"

"Will? Hello, Earth to Planet Willow..."

Xander waved his hand in front of his wife's face, startling her. "What? Huh? Who?"

"We were asking if you knew why the Vishantrai might have attacked you and Buffy." Fortunately for Willow, it was Xander who spoke to her, as Amy, Faith, and Giles were all in various stages of annoyance.

"Well," thought the redhead, "there's not really any Big Bads running around right now, but Spike’s been acting all weird since he got his soul back, and there was this thing that used Tara’s image to try to get me to kill myself.“

“Whoah,” interrupted Faith, "why haven't you guys dusted his ass yet?" Off the upset looks on Willow's, Giles', and Amy's faces, the dark-haired Slayer said, "What? We all agreed that Spike was bad news and that we were lucky that Red staked him as quickly as she did.”

"Well, he does help," mumbled Willow unconvincingly. "Look, that was Buffy's call. I'm not normally up with the 'Kill 'em all!' stuff, you know. Plus, until he got his soul back, he had this chip in his head to keep him from hurting people.”

Xander nodded knowingly, though the others, who were more familiar with their Willow's temper than her quiet compassion, stared in disbelief. Thankfully, Giles came to Willow's rescue, annoyed as ever. "This is all well and good, but it would be good to know just what is using this Vishantrai demon to wreak havoc.”

Willow was, in a word, dumbfounded. "What? Why?” Looking to Xander, she said, "Xander...?"

Almost as if by telepathy, Xander answered every question Willow wanted answered. (Well, except the hows and whys in regards to her counterpart's sexuality, and that Faith thing, too, as well as her concerns about the Chun Li costume in their closet...and the Scarlett costume...and the Kitty Pryde costume...and the Mara Jade costume...and the outfit that looked like it was something Buffy wore sophomore year. Some things were best left unanswered in public, after all.) "Giles said it while you were spaced out (and no, you weren't drooling or anything). Basically, these Vish-whatever demons are assassins for hire, and Giles thinks it does the temporal switch thing in order….”

"...to make it easier to kill us."

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Earlier That Day-Our Universe**

 

Willow woke up, and to put it mildly, she felt awful. And worse yet, she didn’t understand why. _The demon wasn’t_ ** _that_** _strong_ , she thought as she stretched her weary joints. Then, she realized that something was very wrong about her surroundings. She was in Buffy’s house for some reason? And in Buffy’s room? But the things in the room looked like they belonged to her…sort of. Her romance novels were in a modest-sized bookcase, and her laptop was in its case on the floor, but why? And where was Xander? “Xander?” she shouted. “Are you here?” Unable to wait any longer for answers, Willow opened the door…..and was nearly bowled over by a half-panicked Xander.

“Jeez, Will, you had me frightened!” Xander looked weary, as if he hadn’t gotten much sleep last night. Willow was sadly used to it, but this time it seemed….. _different_. “The Vishnu demon-“

“Vishantrai,” corrected Willow affectionately.

“Whatever. Anyways, it smacked you and Buffy around pretty hard last night. Dawn and I were worried.”

Willow embraced Xander warmly (a bit more so than the latter was expecting, to be honest) and said, “I’ve been hurt worse. My Slayer healing doesn’t seem to agree, though.”

Now Xander was confused, big time. “Your what?” He didn’t have an opportunity to ask further, because Buffy emerged from her bedroom, and she looked completely different. Her body language was totally different, and it looked to Xander as if most of the past six years worth of stress and strain of being the Slayer had just evaporated. However, that didn’t mean that she wasn’t worried about something.

“Hey Will, Xand,” she said.

 _She even sounds like a totally different person_ , thought Xander.

“Have you guys seen Tara?”

Xander’s blood went cold with the mention of Tara’s name, and the sharp intake of breath and step backward he took on pure instinct clued in both women that something was wrong.

“Xander,” pleaded Buffy, “where’s Tara?”

“Buffy, Tara’s been dead for over six months. You both were there.” Giving Willow a knowing but reassuring look, he added, “And for everything after.”

Buffy fell to her knees, sobbing. And Willow felt as if she had been punched in the gut. Again. _It’s my fault. I could have prevented this. What kind of Slayer am I if good people keep dying?_ “H-how did she die, Xander? Was it the Vishantrai?”

Xander was beyond confused now. “What? No, it was Warren! I was talking with Buffy outside and you were here with Tara, and Warren, he came at us with that gun, and then he started firing shots everywhere. One got Buffy, and another, it went through the window,” Xander pointed at the very window for emphasis, “and through Tara’s heart.”

Willow and Buffy gave Xander horrible death glares. “That’s not funny, Xander,” hissed Buffy as she regained her composure. “We captured Warren after he tried to kill his girlfriend. He never shot me, or Tara. You’re lying!”

“How can you say something like that, Xander?” asked Willow. “You know how much Buffy loves Tara.”

Now it was Xander’s turn to be incredulous. “What?! What are you talking about, Will? Buffy’s not gay! You are! And,” Seeing the confused looks on Buffy and Willow’s faces, Xander realized what was going on. “And that demon did its mind-scrambling thing on you guys last night.”

* * *

“So, let me get this right,” asked Xander, pacing in front of the living room couch, “as far as you guys remember, Willow’s the Slayer, and Buffy’s the Witch, and I’m….”

“Married to me,” finished Willow, helpfully.

“I gotta sit down,” replied Xander, who sat down between Willow and Buffy.

“If you think that’s wild, wait until we tell Mom that I’m kinda gay,” offered Buffy helpfully.

Xander grimaced again. “Buffy….”

Buffy was again on the verge of tears. “Xander?”

Xander answered tersely, “Joyce died about two years ago. It was an aneurysm.”

Understandably, Buffy started sobbing, and there was little Willow and Xander could do to comfort her.

* * *

Thankfully, Buffy-Xander’s Buffy-kept some tranquilizers on hand, and after giving her a Slayer-sized dose, Willow and Xander put her back to bed and retreated back to the living room.

“Xander,” declared Willow, putting on her practiced brave face, “you’ve got to help Buffy and I get home. She can’t handle all of this. She’s not the Slayer.”

“How do you know it’s not a hallucination?” asked Xander. “Warren and his toadies sent that demon after Buffy that had her believing she was in an asylum.”

Willow winced. “That happened to me, and I can assure you that that was a lot different. You weren’t there telling me that everything I knew was a lie, for one thing.”

“Sorry,” answered Xander. “It’s just that you’re both like you usually are physically-”

“No Slayer healing factor for me, though I do feel strong, just not in the ‘bash demons in the face’ sense, and you had to dope up Buffy with enough tranqs to put an elephant down. Is that what you mean?”

“Exactly, answered Xander. “Plus, all the research says that this thing drives its victims crazy, and nothing about making for some crazy version of _Sliders_.”

“The books have been wrong before,” countered Willow, before punching his arm. “And that’s for mentioning _Sliders_ after what the show did to Wade.”

“And here I thought I was going to be able to get away with that.”

 


	8. Chapter 8

“But I don’t want to train!” complained Willow. “I want to help with the research with Xander.”

“Yes, because we need you and Xander having ’smoochies’ while the rest of us study,” groused Giles.

“How many times do I have to tell you that I’m gay?” shouted Willow indignantly. “I’m more inclined to have my way with Amy on the table than Xander. She’s **way** hotter here than she ever was in my timeline.”

“I like guys!” declared Amy loudly from the cash register.

“Are you sure?” asked Willow and Xander in unison.

Giles mumbled, “Surely, this is punishment for some crime I’ve performed,” as he started to polish his glasses.

“Ooh!” squealed Willow. “Giles is doing the thing! I made Giles do the thing!”

Giles began to desperately wish that he was still on his retreat with his wife.

* * *

Buffy tried to maintain her meditation as Tara closed the blinds in their shared bedroom, but it was a losing battle. _I’m not gay, I’m not gay, I’m not gay, This is not gay sex, Oh my God, it totally is gay sex!_

“Buffy,” declared Tara, interrupting the displaced Slayer’s panic attack, “you need to calm down. And breathe, for Goddess sake.”

“But we’re doing a spell and there’s going to be all this sexy energy and I’m seriously not gay and-“

“Buffy,” declared Tara with a deathful seriousness as she took her partner’s hands in her own, “This is just a simple pencil-raising spell. And I swear to you, I will never, ever, **ever** take advantage of you. And if I ever make you uncomfortable, please tell me, and I **will** stop. You have my word.”

The words were enough to calm down Buffy, who was genuinely touched by Tara’s concern. “Thank you, Tara.” Taking a deep breath to re-center herself, Buffy asked, “Now, how do I do this?”

Tara offered her right hand and said, “First, take my hand.” After Buffy obliged, Tara continued, “Now, close your eyes.”

“OK.”

“Now, picture the pencil in your mind.”

Buffy brow furrowed, and after a few seconds, she announced, “Got it.”

“Good,” encouraged the blonde witch. “Now, you remember how taught you to focus your power earlier?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Focus your power, and picture it lifting the pencil.”

Buffy inhaled slightly, and tried to do just as Tara described. On the floor the pencil twitched a couple of times, and then a few seconds later it bounced as Buffy yelped loudly and flinched back in surprise. “Oh my God! I felt it!”

Startled from the commotion herself, Tara tried to calm herself down despite being thrilled. “G-good job, Buffy! That means your magic is w-working!”

“But why did it jumped like that?” asked Buffy, still breathing heavily. “That scared the hell out of me!”

“It’s because you were rushing,” offered Tara. “You can’t just will the pencil up in the air instantly; you have let the power within you lift it gradually. Now, are you ready to try again.” Buffy nodded eagerly. “Good. Now breathe deeply, and take my hand again.”

Buffy followed Tara’s instructions and pictured the pencil in her mind once again. This time, she did as Tara suggested and used her power to ease up the pencil slowly in the air in her mind.

Tara smiled as the pencil floated in the air, spinning around, seeming as Buffy played with it in her mind. “Now, Buffy, I want you to slowly open your eyes, while maintaining your concentration.”

Buffy nodded, and when she opened her eyes and saw the still floating pencil, she squealed with delight. “Look! The pencil’s floating! I’m doing it!”

“I knew you could, Buffy!” encouraged Tara. “Now, do you think you can lower the pencil back down to the floor?”

“Uh-huh,” Buffy nodded eagerly, still in awe of her newfound magickal abilities.

“Good,” continued Tara, “just imagine all of that power in you deflating, kind of like a balloon, and the pencil should just float back down like a feather.”

Buffy followed Tara’s directions, and the pencil did just as she had said it would. Buffy grinned widely as she was pleased with herself. “That was the coolest thing **ever**!” she shouted gleefully.

Still holding Buffy’s hand, Tara started stroking it as a force of habit. “Did you want to try lifting something bigger, or maybe trying a more complicated spell?”

Buffy looked over at Tara’s hand, and then at Tara, still breathing heavily from the excitement. And then she kissed Tara long and hard, eventually pinning her to the floor. Breaking the kiss with much difficulty, Tara asked, “Buffy, are you sure…”

“Shut up and kiss me,” commanded the Slayer, to which Tara happily obliged.

* * *

“Damn, Red,” declared Faith as she sat down at the table across from Xander, “if that’s your first time in the Slayer saddle, I’d hate to see what happens when you get used to this sort of thing. That was intense.”

“Darn tooting’!” beamed the redhead as she sat down next to Xander. “That Vishantrai’s got another coming to it if he thinks he’s going to kick my ass!” After thinking about it for a second, Willow asked, “It is a ‘he’, right? Because that’d be kind of rude to call a girl demon a guy.” Looking over at the book Xander was poring through, Willow asked, “Any luck, Xander?”

Xander gave a sympathetic smile as brushed a stray hair out of his wife’s face. “Sorry, Will. More of the same talk about assassins and driving people crazy. It seems that most people either die or end up in the nut house.”

“I’m not crazy, Xander.”

“I didn’t say you were, Will.”

Faith stood up with an uncomfortable expression on her face as she watched Willow and Xander. “You know what? I’m starving. Does anyone want some food?” Looking around, she asked, “Amy?”

“Actually,” answered the witch, “I am pretty hungry, if you could bring something back.”

“Awesome.” Looking at Willow, Faith asked, “Red, you wanna come with?”

Willow looked at Xander for a second, and then answered, “No, I’m good.” The expression on Faith’s face implied that her presence was in fact required. “Come to think of it, I could use a bite to eat. Xander, do you want anything?”

Xander grimaced for reasons that Willow didn’t understand, but admitted, “Sure, I could go for a burger or something.”

“Hey, G Man!” shouted Faith. “Last call for grub!”

Giles emerged with a bottled water and some aspirin and said, “Yes, please. And do stop calling me that infernal nickname and shouting after you’ve forced me to listen to your godawful loud music.”

“I gotta bust your chops somehow, Giles,” admitted Faith slyly. “C’mon, Red, let’s get that grub.”

 


	9. Chapter 9

Fifteen minutes later, Faith and Willow were walking back to the Magic Box with an ungodly amount of food and drinks in tow when Faith announced, “Willow, you seriously need to stop screwing with Xander’s head.” On Willow’s shocked and indignant reaction, the raven haired Slayer continued, “Look, I get that you aren’t driving stick in your home universe and all of that, but here, Xander’s deeply in love with you, and I am **not** going to lose the best friend I’ve ever had because you’ve decided it’s fine to screw with his mind.”

Indignantly, Willow responded, “Hey! He’s my best friend! He saved my life! I’m not about to ignore that just because you tell me that being gay means I can’t be close friends with a guy!”

“And this isn’t your Xander Harris!” hissed Faith. “He’s not your ‘best friend’. He lives and breathes for you, and given the chance, he’d do anything to prove it to you!”

The memory of Xander on Kingman’s Bluff declaring his unconditional love came immediately to Willow’s mind, and it sent a chill right through her gut. Guiltily, Willow admitted, “That sounds like my Xander.”

Faith was apoplectic. “Are you fucking serious, Red?”

Willow, sighed, and admitted, “After Tara-my Tara- was killed this past May, I lost whatever control I had on my magicks, and I killed the person responsible, and then, after absorbing a ton of dark magic, I tried to destroy the world. And then, as I’m starting to do it, Xander steps right in the middle of the spell and tells me he loves me no matter what, and he kept saying it and saying it until I finally broke down in tears.”

“Please tell me you haven’t been saying stupid shit like, ‘Gay now!’ and ‘I’m over you sweetie,’ in that sing-songy voice of yours,” begged Faith.

Willow could only bite her lip and whimper as she tried desperately not to cry, because that is exactly what she had been saying to Xander since returning to Sunnydale.

By now, the pair had reached the front door to the Magic Box, and Faith could only kick the front door in frustration. The force was such that it detached the door from the frame and made a terrible sound, surprising the hell out of Giles, Amy and Xander. “Please tell me you’ve found a way to get rid of this manipulative head-case here before I end up handing her over to the stupid demon myself!”

Now feeling about two inches tall, Willow swiftly dropped off her share of the food on the sales counter and ran into the training room, sobbing the entire time. Once out of sight, she tried to cover her ears to blot out the sound of Giles and Faith swearing furiously at each other, but to no avail. And when Xander approached, Willow could sense it before he was within speaking distance, which only added to her pain. “Go away, Xander.”

“I can’t do that, Will,” he answered, which is precisely what Willow **knew** he’d say. “Willow’s in pain, I gotta help. Those are the rules.”

“Why is it that no matter how much I push you away, you keep coming back?” Willow didn’t expect an answer, but, as always, Xander had one.

“Because I love you.”

“Even though I’m the worst friend ever?”

“Look,” replied Xander as he picked up Willow and turned her around to face him, “I don’t know exactly why you never married your Xander, and I’m sure that it’s something more than you falling for Tara, which believe me, I **completely** understand because she’s the sweetest, nicest, gentlest thing that has ever walked the Earth, but I do know that if I had to choose between having to settle for being your doormat or not having you in my life at all, I’d take the former every day of the week, because that’s how much I love you.”

This Xander’s words made a lot of sense to Willow, but….”My Xander dated Cordelia. And his first time was with Faith. And he hid both of those things from me.”

Xander facepalmed. “Jesus, I can be so stupid, sometimes. “Let me guess: I was sprung on Buffy because she was the Slayer?”

“Ohhhhhhhh yeah.”

“And I kept falling for demons and monsters, too, right?”

Willow smiled slightly. “You mean besides Cordelia? Because if so, then praying mantis lady, Ampata, and Anya qualify. And Drusilla when that love spell you had Amy cast on Cordelia backfired.”

“Great googly moogly, Will,” declared Xander with a sigh. “Am I that turned on by assertive, often evil women?”

“Yes.”

“Did I ever notice you at all?”

Willow grimaced at the memory. “When we were trying on our outfits for Homecoming….but I was with Oz, and you were with Cordelia, and then we eventually got caught, and after I was all, ‘Hands off, Xander, my parts belong to Oz.’”

Xander nodded. “I was dating Amy when you and I started fluking.”

“And me?”

“You were single. Oz was interested for a while, and I was **really** interested because you were the Slayer and kicking butt all over town, but you were totally celibate until the fluking. But after Amy caught us engaged, if you catch my drift, we didn’t do anything until Faith literally forced you to go with me on my ‘great road trip’ after senior year, but then we were stuck in Oxnard, and I ended up stripping, and you saw, and, well….the rest is history.”

Willow considered the possibility of Xander stripping, and blushed furiously. “So, I was….?” Xander nodded, not needing to hear the rest of the sentence. “But Amy? Why…?”

“That was all you and Buffy. You were convinced from Day One that I needed someone to love for after you, you know….” Xander couldn’t look Willow in the eye or even finish the sentence, but the meaning was clear to Willow. Slayer Willow was picking someone to replace her in Xander’s heart because she had no chance of living to even graduate high school. “Anyways, Buffy utterly refused to be the one, but she helped you set me up with Amy after we dealt with her Mom.”

“And what about Faith? Why are you so close to her?”

“Her parents suck even worse than mine, Will, so we kind of bonded over that.”

Now confused, Willow asked, So Faith never turned evil or anything?”

“What?!” asked Xander incredulously. “No! After you tore apart Buffy for hiding Angel’s return from the hell dimension, the tension between you two completely faded away. Buffy and Faith weren’t right until after Angel left, though. She was **furious** that a Slayer’s best friend would lie about that, so you getting upset made her feel like you really did care about her.”

Just then, Faith ducked into the training room. “Look, Willow, I’m sorry I jumped all over you. It’s just that-“

“-you don’t want to see Xander get hurt?”

“Precisely.”

Willow looked at Xander and smiled. “Yeah, I know the feeling.”

“Also,” asked Faith, “you said that your version of B is straight, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Then you need to get out here, because that’s so not the case right now.”

Willow looked at Xander, who simply shrugged. When all three stepped outside, Willow saw Buffy with Tara, and froze. All Willow could do was whisper Tara’s name.

“Hey, Willow,” replied Tara. “How are you, considering, you know?”

“I’m OK,” murmured the redhead as she sat down. Turning to Xander, she said hesitantly, “Xan, can you grab me one of those sodas?”

Xander saw the heartbreak in Willow’s eyes, and immediately sympathized. “Sure thing, Will.”

“I-it’s good to s-see you again, Tara,” remarked Willow, desperately trying to maintain her composure. “I miss you.” _Baby._ Willow couldn’t build up the strength to say that one last word, not with Tara so clearly interested in Buffy over everyone else.

After an agonizingly uncomfortable moment of silence between the two not-lovers, Buffy blurted out gleefully, “Willow, I did a spell!”

“She did very good in her first lesson, today,” announced Tara proudly, holding Buffy’s hands the entire time. Buffy blushed and then whispered something to Tara that Willow could have sworn was about about multiple lessons. Whatever it was, Buffy and Tara both found it to be funny.

With a wan smile, Willow said, “That’s good, Buffy!” even though all the news did was to alienate her further. And that’s when Willow’s new Slayer-sense kicked in, and she knew that Faith was right: Buffy had had sex with Tara before coming back to the Magic Box.

* * *

Despite her heartache, Willow tried her best to help with the research, sneaking glances at the sickeningly-sweet couple and then beating herself up for her jealousy between bouts of actual research. Naturally, Xander and Faith noticed, only adding to the unbelievable pressure and helplessness that Willow felt. Thankfully, there was eventually something to break her reverie.

“Oh, I think I found something!” shouted Amy. “Vishantrai…..exchanges minds across realities….”

“Does it have a reversal spell?” asked Willow anxiously.

“No,” mumbled the brown-haired witch as she continued reading, “but it’s in the Paskonian Journals! Do we have that?”

Everyone looked at the book they were currently searching through, but none had it. Before anyone had the chance to react, Willow started tearing through to pile of books on the table, finally finding it after about a minute of frenzied searching. “Got it!” Muttering wildly the entire time, she found the correct passage, and gasped. “The spell is here, but the book says we need the demon present and alive to make things right….and we need to do it by tomorrow night.”

 


	10. Chapter 10

“Tomorrow might?” asked Faith. “What are you talking about?!”

“That’s what it says here,” answered Willow, handing the book over. “The consciousness transfer becomes permanent on the third sunrise after the spell is performed.” Wasting no time at all, Willow stood up and put her jacket back on. “I’m going out to find this thing. Buffy?”

Buffy stood up, but was hesitant. “Shouldn’t I-?”

“No,” interrupted Willow tersely. “Tara and Amy can get the spell ready. I need you with me.” Faith and Xander just looked at each other, having seen this before from their Willow.

“Don’t you think it’s a little rash to rush out there?” asked Xander. “You’ve never patrolled by yourself before as the Slayer.”

“That’s why I’m bringing Buffy,” argued Willow. “Besides, we need to split up and cover as much ground as possible.”

“And what you suggest we do to say in contact?” asked Giles.

Pulling a cell phone out of her jacket pocket, Willow said, “Call me, beep me, if you want to reach me.”

Tara, getting the reference, beamed. “Oh, Buffy and I love that show!”

“I do?” asked Buffy, before realizing, “Oh.”

“C’mon,” declared Willow, clearly antsy to leave as soon as possible, “Let’s go.”

* * *

“Willow, wait up!” Buffy was lagging being her Slayer-enhanced friend, and for someone used to being ahead of the pack, it was absolutely frustrating.

For Willow, it was frustrating, too, but for different reasons. She was utterly determined to get the hell out of this place, and she wasn’t about to let Buffy make time with Tara, and she didn’t even care about how unbelievably petty she was being. Quite frankly, she was running on pure, jealous fury. But still, Willow slowed down just enough for Buffy to catch up.”

When Buffy did catch up, she tapped her friend’s shoulder. “Will, what’s wrong?”

If Willow’s looks could kill in this world, Buffy would be a greasy spot on the street. “You had sex with Tara.”

“She’s not your girlfriend!” shouted Buffy.

“She’s not yours, either,” sneered Willow.

“She could be!” argued the blonde Slayer. “I could be happy here!”

“At what cost?” countered Willow. “Right now, there’s a very lonely, confused woman in your body with a destiny she never asked for, and her mother and girlfriend are essentially dead! And what about the other me? She has the body of a cold-blooded killer, and her husband….”

“…..is still there,” finished Buffy. “Besides, who’s to say that you can’t go back while I stay?”

Willow was horrified. “Are you seriously suggesting….?”

“Betraying my duty? Passing the buck?” asked Buffy rhetorically. “You bet your ass! Look at this place! Mom and Tara are still alive, Amy and Faith never went dark, I never died the second time, you and Xander are together….this place is a paradise! You can’t say that I’m worthy of my calling after seeing this!”

“And what happens if this world’s me dies? Or its Xander?” Buffy, having not spent any amount of time with Xander, was totally lost. “They’re hanging on by a thread! I’ve been doing this for less than a day and I’m already miserable! They’ve been doing it for seven years!”

Buffy was still hopelessly confused. “Will….”

“The other me, when she met you, she tried to set you up with Xander because she knew that being the Slayer meant that she was going to die. And when you refused, she set him up with Amy. She didn’t date Oz, because she knew that he’d have to see her die, too.” Once again, Willow was sobbing. “Do you remember how in love I was with Xander? Or Oz?”

Buffy nodded, and started tearing up, too. “Will, I didn’t even realize…”

“I can’t even process having to come to that decision, and she did it! If not for Faith, Xander and I wouldn’t even be together. She said that we got together because she forced me to go with him on his ‘Great American Road Trip’ but we instead got stuck in Oxnard and he ended up as some sort of a male stripper, and now that I think about it, that does seem pretty hot.”

“Better watch out, Will,” joked Buffy, “pretty soon you’ll be in bed with Xander, back in Boystown.”

“Absolutely not,” argued Willow. “I don’t have magic to throw my hormones out of whack like you do.”

“Slaying’s going to make you horny and hungry, just watch,” said Buffy. “Ooh! Ooh!” she pointed, interrupting her train of thought. “New vampire!”

Buffy’s experience paid off, as indeed, there was a newborn vamp standing up for the first time in his unlife. This one had apparently been a jock at Sunnydale High, based on his letterman jacket. So, naturally, Willow was able to stake him with no effort whatsoever. “Well, that was easy.”

WHACK!

“What the hell?!” shouted Willow as she instinctively rubbed her nose, only to kicked in the stomach for her troubles.

“Willow!” shouted Buffy, who tried to fight this second vamp, only to get tossed aside like a rag doll.

“Curse you, Slayer!” announced the vamp, who Willow noticed looked so geeky that it made her sophomore year self appear to be Batman in comparison. “He was my boyfriend!”

Willow felt like her intelligence had been insulted. “Seriously? Do I look that dumb to you?” She started wailing on the vamp, who proved to be as much of cakewalk as her alleged boyfriend, leading to another easy staking for the witch-in-Slayer’s-body.

“Jeez,” admonished Buffy, “you’re a bully, Mrs. Harris.”

“It’s not bullying if they bring it on themselves by lying like that.”

“Whatever, you say, ‘Cordelia’.”

“Hey!”

Buffy laughed maniacally as she and Willow moved on with their search.

* * *

“OwowowowowOW!” screamed Willy as Willow twisted his ear as if he was a misbehaving student. “I told you, I don’t know anything!”

Willow looked to Buffy for guidance on just how to abuse the weaselly demon bartender, and Buffy just rolled her eyes at Willy’s declaration of ignorance. So, Willow just slammed his face into the counter and commanded, “Stop lying, Willy! If someone is using a Vishatrai demon, trying to put a hit on me, you have to have heard **something**!”

“Are you kidding?! Most of my clients are as afraid of getting their minds messed with as you are!” The door to the bar opened, and Willy breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, hey, Faith, Xander. You think you can get this rabid attack dog off my case now?”

“ **HEY**!” Not appreciating the comment in the least, Willow slammed Willy’s head to the counter a second time, but much harder.

“I think Big Red’s got this one handled, don’t you, Xander?”

“I for one try to never question the judgement of my wife,” answered Xander nonchalantly.

Realizing he was basically screwed, Willy admitted, “All right, all right! I don’t know what’s messing with you, but the Vishantrai has been hanging around in the sewers near the high school during the day!”

“That’s all I needed to know,” answered Willow cheerfully as she released Willy. “So, how did I do?”

“Not too bad, kid,” admitted Willy. “Though you probably shouldn’t defer to Blondie over there-it blows the cover that the Vishantrai has scrambled your brains or whatever.”

* * *

Outside, Willow and Faith compared notes. Other than the usual load of vampires hanging around, Willy had provided the best lead on the location of the Vishrantrai by far. “I guess this means we wait until the morning to catch this thing,” offered Faith.

“It’s cutting things a bit close, but I guess you’re right, Faith,” agreed Willow. “Let’s-“ just then, Willow’s stomach growled in a very loud fashion, much to her embarrassment, “I guess I have a rumbly in my tumbly.”

“Told you,” declared Buffy, “hungry and horny. Happens every time.”

“Got that right,” muttered Faith crankily, who was feeling the latter, and rather unhappily without someone to burn off that energy. With a knowing leer, she added, “Come on, B, let’s go check in with the G Man so the happy couple can go home to blow off some, uh, steam.”

Willow and Xander blushed furiously and promptly avoided eye contact until they were back in “their” apartment.

 


	11. Chapter 11

Now safely in her and Xander’s ( _No, just Xander’s_ , thought Willow, admonishing herself mentally), Willow decided to get down to business. Namely, the business of stuffing her face. Ice cream, cookies, soda, even a whole pie succumbed to Willow’s insatiable appetite. And her table manners! Willow had of course seen more than her share of post-Slaying pig outs by Buffy, but now she understood why Buffy’s manners were sometimes suspect. She was **hungry**!

Xander was completely unfazed by all of this, and was nonchalantly watching TV all while it was going on. The only thing Xander had to say about the entire affair was, “Done?” when Willow sat down besides him on their- _HIS!_ -couch.

Willow opened her mouth to respond, but merely burped instead, loud and long. Willow blushed; Xander, ever the perpetual teenager, started snickering. “Xander!” she scolded, while slapping his arm.

“Ow!”

“You deserve it!” Willow argued with mock petulance. After a pregnant pause, she asked, “So, what do we do now?”

Xander blushed. He knew **exactly** what usually happened with his Willow after she had pigged out, but with this one having proclaimed that she was gay rather loudly, he wasn’t about to go against her wishes. “Well, it’s kind of late, so I was going to grab a blanket and sleep on the couch.” Left unsaid, however, was the implication that Xander was sleeping on the couch because he refused to make Willow uncomfortable in any way. Which, of course, still happened because Willow was suddenly-and shamefully-aware of the barrier she had imposed upon him.

“No, I’ll sleep out here,” replied Willow, who was quickly getting irritated with this version of her best friend.

“Willow, I insist,” demanded Xander. “This couch is horrible to sleep on.”

“Will you stop?” raged Willow. “I’m not your wife! Stop treating me like her!”

“Maybe not,” explained Xander, “but you’re still Willow.”

The witch/Slayer was at her boiling point. “For once in your life, can you just **stay away**?”

“And leave you here confused and stressed out? That’s not what friends do, Will.”

Willow started sobbing. “You’re not my friend! You just look like him!”

“Am I really that much different than your Xander?” he asked as he stood right in front of her.

Willow knew the answer, and she hated it. “No. You’re exactly the same.”

“Then why are you so upset?”

“Because every time I keep saying that I’m gay and that Tara wasn’t an ‘experiment’, I see a reason why this world is telling me the opposite.” Wiping the tears from her eyes, she added, “And every time I look at you and see my Xander, I feel awful knowing that he might just be in love with me still.”

“Look, Will,” argued Xander, “maybe he is, and maybe he isn’t, but I can tell you this: he will never be anything other than what you need, and when you need it.”

Thinking yet again of that day in May, Willow nodded in agreement. “Good night, Xander,” she said as she hugged the alternate version of her best friend before heading to the bedroom.

“Good night, Willow.”

 


	12. Chapter 12

“So, after all that, you still didn’t take a ride? Damn, Red, you must really like to jill.” Faith seemed to be living vicariously through Willow this morning, because all that she had wanted to know about since meeting up with the redhead was about what she had done after her first fully-fledged night of Slaying.

Willow blushed. “Well, he is a married man. Besides, if I’m going back to, you know, I need it to be right. I can’t just jump the first Xander-shaped bone I see.”

Faith concentrated as the two women reached a sewer junction, trying to figure out if she could tell which way the Vishantrai had gone. “Yeah, I can see that, but our Willow’s first time with Xander was hardly ideal. She was covered in goop from some nasty, and Xander was just coming off stage from being pawed at by a bunch of horny bachelorettes.” Faith grimaced, not only at the thought, but of her inability to figure out where to go. “Besides, Queen B has certainly found no problems with eating at the Y.”

Absentmindedly, Willow pointed at the path straight ahead, getting a shrug in agreement from Faith, before realizing what the Slayer meant. “How can you…?”

“Slayer smelling,” Faith answered while tapping her nose. “B’s breath just **reeked** of it yesterday. Normally, they both at least attempt to hide it.”

“Well, that’s too much infor-wait!” Willow’s train of thought was derailed as she held her hand up to stop Faith. “Do you hear that?”

Faith nodded as she also heard what sounded like a far-off tapping to their left. “Yeah. And I think it’s coming closer.”

“We must be getting closer to the school,” replied Willow.

The two continued walking, and the tapping became louder. “I think that’s something other than the school,” shouted Faith as the tapping noise became outright banging.

“Huh?!” shouted Willow back, unable to hear anything over the incessant banging. “I can’t hear you!!”

Worse yet, the walls started to shake. And then, they started to shake so hard that Willow and Faith started stumbling around like drunks. Faith had something to say, but Willow was ultimately happy that she was horrid at lip-reading based on the annoyed expression on Faith’s face. However, any thoughts were interrupted by the loud…..

WHAM!

It was the Vishantrai, and it looked **pissed**. “Oh, great, it’s the Kool-Aid Man,” sneered Faith dismissively.

“With fangs?” asked Willow.

“Goes with the territory,” offered Faith before taking a shot at the demon. Unfortunately, the Vishantrai, backhanded Faith, sending her staggering back towards Willow, suddenly playing the role of Slayer catcher. “I think he likes it rough, Red.”

“My turn, then?” Faith nodded. “OK.” Displaying a cheerfulness that belied her newness to Slaying, Willow walked up to the demon and took a swing at its gut….which lacked any power whatsoever. “What the hell?”

The Vishantrai hissed at Willow, and proceeded to counterattack. Faced with the possibility of having her skull bashed in, Willow raised her hand above her head in a defensive move. The demon swung…..

…..and its arm stopped in mid-air. Looking up at her attacker with blackened eyes, Willow grinned evilly. “Uh-oh. Looks like Mommy’s home.” Suddenly, Willow had her magic powers back, and the torrential flood of power sent her well on her way to Eviltown. “Cru-!”

And then, suddenly, the magic was gone, as if a balloon had popped inside Willow’s soul. The Vishantrai began to resume its attack as Willow staggered. Luckily, Faith was there, and grabbed both of the creature’s arms, using her strength to pull them back into a frog-march position. “Ah ah ah, ugly,” replied Faith. “That’s no way to treat Mommy.”

“You joke,” sneered the demon, speaking in a serpentine-accented English, “but thisss one sshall sssuffer.”

Faith slammed the beast against an intact portion of the sewer wall. “Tough talk from the guy who’s about to get his arms ripped off.”

“You need me to return thisss **witch** and the Ssslayer to where they belong,” answered the Vishantrai with a sneer. Willow and Faith exchanged frustrated looks, their gritted teeth indicating no effort to hide the fact that their bluff had been called. “Return them,” challenged the beast to Faith. “My Massster will still sstand victorioussss.”

“Who is it?” commanded Willow desperately. “Who wants us dead?”

“From beneath you, it devoursss.”

“Tell me!” The Vishantrai only chuckled in a suitably hiss-filled fashion, angering Willow to the boiling point. Unable to take it any more, she slugged the creature, knocking it out cold.

Perplexed, Faith asked, “I take it that you’ve heard what he said before?”

Willow confirmed the assumption with a nod. “Uh huh. That’s what the thing posing as Tara told me last week.”

“Marvelous,” replied the brunette sarcastically. “Lift it’s legs, will you?” We need to get this thing secured as soon as we can.”

 


	13. Chapter 13

“Do I even want to know where Faith got those chains?” asked Willow as Faith shoved along the restrained Vishantrai, who was grumbling in its native language again, as opposed to the English it used earlier.

“What are you talking about?” answered Xander. “We gave them to her after after we got a new set.”

“I was right,” replied a suddenly queasy redhead. “I didn’t want to know. It’s bad enough that we have all of those sexy cosplay outfits for me in the closet…..”

“Your idea!” blurted out Xander loud enough so that Giles, Amy, and Tara looked up from the spell preparations.

“Horny and hungry,” repeated Buffy as she lugged some supplies over to Tara.

“I think I’m going to throw up.”

* * *

By the time the spell was ready to be cast, it was dusk. Willow was told where to stand by Giles while Buffy was speaking with Tara.

“I don’t wanna go,” pleaded Buffy. “I’ve messed up things so bad….”

“Shh,” comforted Tara as she stroked Buffy’s cheek. “You have to go back, Baby. I need my Buffy, and your world needs its Slayer.”

“But….”

“‘But’, nothing,” admonished the blonde witch. “It’s where you belong. Besides, you’re my Amazon. You can do this.”

“Are you sure?” whispered Buffy.

“Yes,” answered Tara. “Now go, and prove me right.”

Buffy nodded for a moment, and started to back away, but instead leapt into Tara’s arms and kissed her passionately, savoring every last moment. “Goodbye.”

“Goodbye, Buffy.”

* * *

Willow was standing in the general vicinity of her assigned position, watching forlornly as Buffy said her final goodbyes to this version of Tara, when Faith stepped beside her. “So, Willow, I’ve got a question…”

“Sure, what is it?” replied Willow, happy to be distracted from Tara.

“Well, you see, I was kind of wondering: the Red Sox-are they any good in your world?”

Willow, far from a baseball fan, was perplexed. “Do you mean this year? Because the Angels won the World Series this year. They had that little Rally Monkey that reminded Buffy of Oz for some reason.” Beaming, she added, “It was cute.”

Faith, recognizing what Willow was talking about, groaned. “I hate that damn monkey,” she whispered. Back to the subject on hand, Faith asked point blank, “No, I mean, have they won the World Series any time recently?”

“Uh….no?” offered Willow, who was unsure. “I think there’s supposedly ‘curse’ on them-something about a Baby Ruth candy bar or something?”

Faith swore violently. “God damned Yankees! Stupid ‘1918’ chants!”

“Sorry.”

“You’re not going to say goodbye to Glinda over there?” asked Faith in between invectives towards the New York Yankees. “Could be your last chance.”

Willow gulped and realized that Faith was right. There would be no meeting Tara in the afterlife if all of those Saturdays at the Synagogue were even the least bit true. “I guess you’re right.” Pausing for a moment, Willow did something almost unthinkable: she hugged the brown-haired Slayer. “Thank you, Faith.”

“Not a problem, Red.”

Steeling herself, Willow walked up to Tara just after Buffy finally let go. “Tara, can I talk to you for a sec?”

“S-sure,” she answered, somewhat hesitantly.

“I know you’re not ‘my’ Tara or anything like that, but I wanted to say goodbye. I’m never going to see you again, you know.”

“Yeah, I kind of figured,” admitted Tara, who was suddenly uncomfortable in the face of her own mortality.

Willow fidgeted for a moment as an uncomfortable silence hung between the two women. And then, with nothing left to lose, Willow pounced and kissed Tara as passionately as she could manage before backing off and leaving the alternate version of her former lover gasping for air.

 


	14. Chapter 14

“So, how does this work?” asked Willow, who after being dressed down by the Vishantrai, was more than ready to go home. At present, she, Buffy, and the demon were standing a different points of an elaborate Pentagram while Faith kept the reptilian third of the unhappy trio in check.

“Basically,” answered Giles, “Tara and Amy will perform the spell while the three of you stand there.”

“So, how exactly are Dawn, Xander, and maybe Anya supposed to pull this off on the other side?” asked Buffy as she shared a tearful glance with Tara, who was already laying down powders while Amy lit the necessary candles.

“The sssspell issss different acrosssss the void,” hissed the Vishantrai.

“You better hope so, Fang Face,” threatened Faith, “because if there’s any funny stuff, you’ll be wearing your ass as a hat.”

By now, Tara and Amy were chanting, and there was a sudden wind and a palpable feeling of power in the air. “I may die tonight, but my Massster will control both of your worldssss. Itssss claim isss Firssst.”

Amy and Tara’s chanting started to reach a crescendo, and both Buffy and Willow turned to face Tara. However, unbeknownst to all, the Vishantrai was starting to break free of its bonds.

“Goodbye, Tara!” shouted Willow, her heart breaking. “I love you!”

Tara nodded ever-so-slightly, knowing that the slightest false movement could cause the spell to fail. “Chronos, we beseech thee. Return the lost to their proper place!”

“I’ll never forget you, Tara!” shouted Buffy tearfully.

Tara understood everything Buffy meant with those five words, but still she did not waver. “Return!”

And suddenly, the Vishantrai broke free of its bonds. Faith rushed the creature with axe in hand but was swatted away effortlessly.

“ **RETURN**!!!”

* * *

Suddenly, Buffy and Willow saw nothing but a flash of light, and were totally disoriented. Buffy was the first to recover,and just in time, as the Vishantrai was swinging one of its scale-encrusted arms right at her. Almost instinctively, Buffy caught its arm, and easily broke the limb. “Uh oh, look who’s back.” Suffice to say, the newly re-en-Slayered Buffy was a tad upset, and felt an intense need to beat the living hell out of the thing. After a fairly lengthy wailing, Buffy shouted, “Dawn, axe!”

Just as requested, Dawn tossed her sister the requested weapon, and Buffy caught it effortlessly and swung, resulting in a mighty….

THWOK!

The Vishnatrai, now headless, wavered on its legs before collapsing to the ground as a lifeless corpse.

“Buffy?”

The Slayer looked at Xander and Dawn as if to confirm that she was in fact, the right Buffy before exchanging a strained, knowing glance with Willow, who was still woozy, but otherwise fully conscious.

“Let’s get the hell out of here.”

* * *

In the other universe, the battle was over just as quickly, with Willow saving the day just as she had done countless times before. With the threat ended, Buffy practically attacked Tara as she showered her girlfriend with passionate kisses. Willow, however, simply sat down on the ground and wept as Xander cradled her in his arms.

 


	15. Epilogue

The next day, Willow and Xander watched as Buffy nervously walked towards Tara’s grave, flowers in tow. “You’re not going to visit?” asked Xander.

“I need to think a bit more, first,” answered Willow. “About a lot of things.”

Xander started to ask something, but the warm look on Willow’s face as she looked at him answered his question. “Buffy took it pretty hard, didn’t she?” asked Xander.

“Mostly the leaving,” murmured Willow. “She was free of all of that pressure of being the Slayer, and then having Joyce around, and Tara, too. I’m still kind of jealous.”

“Yeah, the other her was pretty different, for the most part,” agreed Xander. “It was kind of like that day when Amy’s mother hit her with the magic whammy. You know, Buffy, but a bit ditzy.”

Willow thought of Buffy calling Xander one of the girls and laughed in spite of herself. “Yeah, that was pretty funny. Except the whole attempted murder part, of course.”

“So, what about you? How was life as Mrs. Xander Harris, Slayer of Vampires?”

Willow sighed a bit and said, “It was…..I mean….You, the other you, he was so sad, but so happy all at the same time.”

Having spoken to the other Willow, Xander understood. “It was because you were the Slayer, wasn’t it? She never said it, but other you felt responsible for everything that happened to us. Buffy, especially. I don’t even know how she ever even let me or Buffy help. And when we were alone, she cried, a lot. She couldn’t sleep, either.”

“Remember the Master’s prophecy, and when you saved Buffy’s life? Well, for them, that was me.”

Xander winced. It had been bad enough when he thought Willow might die after Drusilla put her in the hospital, but actually seeing her lifeless dead body? That would have been devastating. However, as was his custom, Xander tried to break the mood with an inappropriate joke. “I guess that explains why that other Willow stayed in Boystown, then, doesn’t it?”

Willow smirked and shot back, “Not really. Slayers are part demon, remember. That makes her your perfect mate.”

“Says the Willow who turned evil but is still over me.” That comment earned Xander a well-deserved slap on the shoulder, but it was enough to lighten the mood as they waited for Buffy.

* * *

Buffy stood before Tara’s grave, and tried to think of what to say for like the 10 millionth time today. But mostly, she tried not to cry.

“I brought you some flowers,” was the first thing that Buffy managed to say, but not the last. For a solid 45 minutes, Buffy talked about her time in that other reality, about performing her first spell, and about seeing her mother again (and being squicked yet again about the idea of Giles and her mother having sex), and Willow and Xander, and of falling in love with this other Tara. And of how much she now missed Tara, and how horribly guilty that made her feel.

With nothing left to say, Buffy laid the bouquet at Tara’s gravestone and whispered, “Goodbye, Tara. I love you.” And when she left in the welcoming arms of Willow and Xander, Buffy never once looked back, but she knew that she would carry Tara, and the memory of the road less traveled, with her for the rest of her days.

 


End file.
